Unity is paying US$1.6B for the Weta Digital tools that created Gollum

• Unity is acquiring Weta’s tools with the goal of putting them into the hands of artists around the world
•  This means game creators, filmmakers, and other artists will have access to a long list of powerful software for building digital characters, simulating the movement of smoke and light, and much more
•  Unity will take on the task of marketing and productizing Weta’s core technologies

Tencent leads US$26m round of Sequoia-backed gaming firm

• Mod.io, an Australia-based game development firm, has raised US$26 million in its latest round of funding
• More funding details

1. Lead investors: Tencent
2. New investors: Lego Ventures, OIF Ventures

• Launched in 2019, Mod.io applies a user-generated-content (UGC) approach to game development while making modding easier for users
• Over 80 games have used Mod.io to date, and the firm has distributed 20 million unique UGCs to 3 million players through its platform. For 2021, Mod.io said it has seen downloads grow 300% year-on-year, with 177 million mods having been downloaded so far this year

Tencent buys maker of hit Nintendo Switch games

• Tencent has quietly acquired a Japanese creative studio with several Nintendo Switch hit games to its name as part of a talent acquisition spree in the home of anime and manga
• Tencent has acquired about a 90% stake in Wake Up Interactive for nearly US$44 million
• The Japanese game studio has developed popular Nintendo Switch game Ninjala and helped create Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes

Lingxi Games invested nearly ￥100 million(US$15.6 million) in Terafun Games

• Lingxi Games holds a share of 15%
• Terafun Games was born in 2021, located in Shanghai; The company has developed 10+ games and has a cumulative revenue over ￥13 billion(US$2 billion)

Developer of Figure Story received invetsment from NetEase

• XG Joy is the developer of Figure Story, company located in Hangzhou since 2016 with 100+ staff in Hangzhou and Beijing; The company focuses on waifu games
• Figure Story was launched in the Chinese market at the end of September 2020 and was released by Bilibili in South Korea and published by Bytedance in Japan market; The game has entered the top 10 best-selling list in South Korea and they still maintain some popularities
• The total investment is ￥60 million(US$9.4 million), was led by NetEase and Bilibili; NetEase holds a share of 20% while Bilibili holds a 5%

MiHoYo lets creators make and sell Genshin Impact content

•  MiHoYo announced this week that it is permitting players and fans to produce original secondary content based on its popular mobile action RPG
• More surprisingly, the studio is allowing content creators to sell that merch
• According to its guidelines, fan art and fan fiction artists don’t even need to declare their creations to MiHoYo, but things that might compete with official merchandise like figurines do
• If a writer or an artist wants to take a commission to produce Genshin Impact creative works they can just do it

VNG pours US$22.5m into Vietnamese B2B ecommerce firm

• Vietnam-based Telio, a startup that connects retailers with brands and wholesalers, said it has raised US$22.5 million as part of its latest round of funding
• More funding details

1.  Investor: VNG
2.  Stage: Pre-series B

• As part of the strategic investment, VNG will help Telio boost its presence on Zalo’s instant messaging platform, helping merchants on Telio digitize order management
•  VNG and Telio will also provide small and medium-sized businesses access to financial support products to support their expansion efforts
• VNG’s bet in Telio comes after a two-year legal dispute between the latter’s CEO Sy Phong Bui and his former company ended with the Singapore High Court

Tencent posts US$22b revenue in Q3 2021

• Q3 2021 Revenue

1.  Total revenue: US$22 Billion, YoY+ 13%
2.  Mobile Games  Revenue: (including social network business): US$6.6 Billion, YoY+ 8.5%, QoQ+ 4.2%, accounting for 78.4% of Total game revenue
3.  PC Games Revenue: US$1.8 Billion, YoY+ 0.6%, QoQ+ 6.4%
4.  China Game Revenue: US$5.2 Billion, YoY+ 5%, driven by titles such as Call of Duty Mobile, Moonlight Blade Mobile, and Honor of Kings
5.  Oversea Game Revenue: US$1.8 Billion, YoY+ 20%, due to the great performances of Valorant and Clash of Clans

• Products

1.  In Oct 2021, League of Legends Mobile was the second largest mobile game in China in terms of DAU
2.   Battle of Golden Spatula’s DAU ranked second among the all new games launched in China since the beginning of the year

• China Teck Crackdown Effects

1. Minors players of Tencent now account for only 0.7% of time spent playing its domestic titles in September, YoY- 6.4%
2. Minors made up 1.1% of domestic games grossing receipts in September, YoY- 4.8%

Roblox bookings grow 28% to US$637.8M for Q3 2021

• Roblox reported its bookings for Q3/21 ended September 30 were US$637.8 million, YoY+ of 28%
• Roblox’s quarterly revenue came in at US$509.3 million, YoY+ of 102%
• Roblox has done well among its target audience of children and teens during the pandemic, as players turned to it for remote, socially distanced play with their friends at a time when they couldn’t meet in-person
•  Roblox audience is aging up, as a higher percentage of users are now over 13
• Average DAU were 47.3 million in Q3, YoY+ of 31%
• Roblox’s goal is to build the metaverse, the universe of virtual worlds that are all interconnected

Zynga’s Q3 2021 bookings of US$668M are up 6% from a year ago

• Zynga’s revenue was US$705 million, YoY+ 40%; and bookings of US$668 million, YoY+ 6%
• Zynga also announced it hired former Coca-Cola game executive Matthew Wolf as its new head of blockchain gaming as it prepares for a big shift in business models
• Q3 Mobile DAUs is 38 million, YoY+ 21%
•  In 2021, Zynga expects to deliver revenue of US$2.78 billion, YoY+ 41%

Korea game Q3 performance

•  In this quarter, while Netmarble and NCsoft's earnings were decreased, Nexon's revenue stood out. Nexonrecorded $752M in revenue and $261M in operating profit
• Please see below earnings of each companie ( In USD)
•  Nexon ($752M, $261M) >
•  Netmarble ($515M, $165M) >
•  Krafton ($441M, $165M) >
•  NCsoft ($424M, $81M) >
•  Kakao Games ($395M, $35M) >
•  DoubleU ($134M, $40M) >
• Com2us ($95M, $10M) >
• NHN ($80M, -) >
• PearlAbyss ($80M, 8M) >
•  Devsisters ($56M, $6M) > Webzen ($55M, $13M)  >
•  Wemade ($53M, $14M) > Gamevil ($38M, $17M) >
•  Sundaytoz (22M, $2.8M)

 Kakao Games's Q3 2021 Performances

• Kakao Games’s Q3 revenue reached 466.2 billion won(US$396 million), a YoY+ of 210%, which is also its highest quarterly performance in its history
•  The shot up in revenue thanks to the great performances of ODIN: Valhalla Rising
• New game pipelines:

1.  CyberAgent to publish in Global Market
2. Waifu mobile Game Ever Soul to publish in Global Market
3. Battle Royale FPS PC games Dysterra to publish in Global Market

• The next three major areas are sports, Metaverse and NFT games

Nexon reports mobile game revenue down 44% for Q3

• Q3 2021 mobile games revenue

1. Decreased 44% YoY to JPY 18.6 billion (US$165 million)

• Q3 2021 PC game revenue

1. JPY 57.2 billion (US$506.8 million), YoY+ 24% and accounted for more than 75% of the company's earnings

•  Q3 2021 Total Game revenue

1. JPY 76 billion (US$673 million), YoY- 4%

• Products

1. Revenue was driven by Dungeon & Fighter, MapleStory, FIFA Online 4, and The Kingdom of the Winds: Yeon

•  Q4 expectations

1. Revenue between JPY 51.2 billion (US$453.6 million) and JPY 57 billion (US$505 million), up 23% to 33% year-over-year

Lineage W's performance in South Korea,TW and HK so far, brought huge success for NCSoft

• NCsoft’s Q3 revenue dropped due to the failure of Blade & Soul 2

1. Revenue US$424M, Operating profit US$81M, Net profit US$84M
2. Compared to the previous quarter, revenue decreased 7% and operating profit decreased 15%. Net income increased by 5%
3. Revenue by game:  Lineage M (US$127M ), Lineage 2M (US$133M ), Blade & Soul 2 (US$19M )

• Expect Q4 revenue will be increased with Lineage W’s huge success

1. Ranked first in revenue in Korea and Taiwan and Hong Kong markets
2. The global daily revenue of 'Lineage W' is about US$10M
3. The accumulated revenue on the 9th day of the service would exceed US$84M
4. lobal service expansion of 'Lineage 2M' and North American and European service of 'Lineage W'

 CNG & Tencent Cloud China Game industry Report 2021

• China Game Market Size

1. In 2021, the actual sales revenue of China Domestic Game market will exceed ￥290 billion(US$45.3 billion)
2. In 2021, mobile game market size will reach ￥230 billion(US$35.9 Billion)
3. In 2021, the revenue of self-developed Chinese games in oversea markets will reach US$17 billion
4. In H1 2021, there were 56 mobile games in China with a revenue of over ￥500 million(US$78 million), an increase of 16 from 40 year on year
5. In H1 2021, new 2021 released product revenue only accounted for 21.3% of total revenue

• Game Products in Domestic Market & Oversea markets

1. Domestic market:

• In 2021, MMORPG, ARPG, MOBA, turn-based RPG, and SLG are still the main contributors to the game revenue with 22%, 14%, 12% and 11%; However, MMORPG accounted for 28% of the total revenue in 2018, has a drop in two years
• Shooting genre grows fast, accounted for 14% of the total revenue in 2021 and was only 5 % in 2018
• Most of new released games in 2021 are with elements such as open world, fantasy, high-freedom
•  In 2021, anime and sci-fi themes are favored by young users; In h1 2021, sci-fi themes has increased by 351.6% compared with the same period in 2018. The growth rate of anime themes has also increased more than 200%

1. Oversea market:

• Current Chinese game companies in oversea market still dominate the game market by SLG games
• In the future, these companies will need to extend to different genres

Classic MMORPG remake Ragnarok Origin now live

• Gravity's mobile MMORPG Ragnarok Origin has now launched globally on iOS and Android
• The game is a mobile remake of 2002's Ragnarok Online, the game's been updated with features including refined combat, improved 3D graphics and redesigned questions
• Based in Seoul, South Korea, Gravity is also floated on the Nasdaq stock exchange, its various Ragnarok games have been played by over 120 million gamers

 Clash Mini begins soft launch in Canada and Nordics

• Clash Mini is heading into soft launch with a beta in Finland, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland, from 8th Nov
• Throughout the beta, players will be able to create a team of Heroes and Minis to battle in the game’s auto-chess-like battlefield
• Clash Heroes is still in its early stage with no release date yet confirmed
• Supercell stated that there is no scheduled release date for Clash Quest yet, however, there will be more content arriving in the game soon

Is 'NFT Game' a game changer? 

•  Following Wemade’s Mir4 success, blockchain is positioned as a core new business in the game industry. Major Korean game companies are planning to apply P2E (play to earn) model in games.
• NCSoft has announced that they had set up a task force team for reviewing P2E in MMORPG genre and completed a technical review of its own coin issuance.
• Com2us is planning to apply P2E in their new game Summoner’s war: Chronicles (next year)
• Neowiz is planning to launch P2E blockchain game next year
• Kakao Games and Gamevil plan to launch an NFT exchange next year

Seven Knights 2 is officially releasd in last week

• Netmarble officially release one of their big game IP franchise 'Seven Knights 2' this week for AOS and IOS devices
•  With stunning 3D graphic and realistic graphic style, the game genre changes from turn-based into action RPG with dozens of characters
• Players will enjoy the game storyline that take 20 years after the first Seven Knights game, collecting new and old heroes using gacha and also features like PvE and PvP arena

Nexon's Mobile Shooter RPG 'Blue Archive' Officially Release

• Blue Archive is new mobile shooter RPG with 3D anime-style graphics, published by Nexon for both AOS and IOS devices
• Players can enjoy exciting stories, real-time battle with their cute characters and their skill cutscenes
• The more we get to know them and spend time with each character using in-game messenger MomoTalk, players will discover new charming secrets

Ngạo Thế Kiếm Thần is officially released by 9Play

• This is a xianxia MMORPG title with multi-platform system
• The game has been released on 12 Nov for mobile and coming soon for PC

  Chiến Binh Vũ Trụ will be released in late November

• This is a turn-based card battle game with Dragon Ball IP
• The game is opening for pre-registration and will be published on 24 Nov

VNG's JXR started CB in TW/HK, pre-reg exceeded 400K and will be launched on 1st Dec

• The classic MMORPG based on famous IP will start CB between 24th Nov – 28th Nov
• The game will be published by VNG in TW/HK on 1st Dec